Federal Court Upholds Goss’ Judgment Against TKS

CEDAR RAPIDS, IA–June 1, 2004–Citing evidence that TKS used “a fraudulent price increase and secret $2.2 million rebate” to prevent one U.S. newspaper from purchasing Goss presses, and that TKS and its lawyers “attempted to destroy documents to conceal the secret rebates”, United States District Court Judge Linda Reade issued an opinion on May 26th upholding the $31.6 million judgment that Goss International won from TKS last December. That judgment followed a three week trial in federal court in which the jury found that Tokyo Kikai Seisakusho, Ltd. and its U.S. subsidiary (“TKS”) had systematically dumped TKS’s press equipment on the U.S. market with the intent to destroy or injure the U.S. printing press industry.

In a sometimes scathing rebuke of TKS’s position, the court summarized the evidence showing that TKS violated the United States Antidumping Act in connection with a series of U.S. sales. Regarding TKS’s 1996 sale to one U.S. newspaper, for example, the Court noted that “TKS’s own lawyer, Mr. Saito, testified that the price TKS charged for the 1996 sale was a dumped price.” The court also referred to evidence “that TKS agreed to a fraudulent price increase and secret $2.2 million rebate to keep (the newspaper) from purchasing the two towers from Goss in 1996.”

According to the court, there was evidence that TKS and the newspaper agreed to increase the price of the press equipment “on paper” so as “[t]o make it appear to Goss that the 1996 sale was not dumped. . . In exchange, TKS and [the newspaper] agreed that TKS would secretly rebate $2.2 million to [the newspaper] through a combination of $1 million in cash and a promise of $1.2 million in free digital ink pumps or credit to be delivered in the future.”

According to the decision, “The jury was also presented with evidence that TKS and its counsel engaged in a concerted effort to conceal the secret rebates.” TKS’s own lawyer had warned TKS that putting the rebates in writing would be “incriminating” and that it should be done instead as a “handshake deal”.